Fire incident at ONGC's Hazira, India, plant hits gas supplies to end-users

New Delhi — A fire incident at India's flagship upstream major Oil and Natural Gas Corp-owned gas processing unit at Hazira hit supplies to power and fertilizer industries, though the company diverted gas from other sources to maintain supplies to end-users, company officials said Sept. 25.

The company officials earlier said that the fire that broke at the gas processing unit early Sept. 24 morning was brought under control within hours with no reports of any human casualty.

The plant processes the natural gas received from the state-run oil and gas explorer's western offshore fields in Gujarat.

The plant was handling 32 million-33 million cu m/day compared with a total processing capacity of 46.9 million cu m/d.

After the fire broke at the plant, as per safety drills, gas fields were closed and gas supplies to user industries were also stopped.

Usually, the operations resume after a thorough review of the safety standards.

The western offshore gas fields share around 74% in ONGC's total gas output.

ONGC produced 23.75 Bcm of gas in the fiscal year 2019-20 (April-March), down 3.76% on the year.

In July, ONGC's natural gas production stood at 1.93 Bcm, down 4.8% on the year.

For the April-July period, its gas production stood at 7.28 Bcm, down 10.7% on the year.

PIPELINE NETWORK SAFE

The plant at Hazira is the country's one of the largest gas-processing facilities and a major supplier of the fuel to local industries that receive gas from the Hazira-Vijaipur-Jagdishpur, or HVJ, trunk pipeline.

The HVJ pipeline is India's largest and runs from Hazira in the west to Jagdishpur in northern India.

Gas Authority of India Limited, the state-run gas utility company, uses gas from the Hazira plant to supply to user industries such as power and fertiliser.

GAIL maintains adequate stocks in the trunk gas pipeline to maintain supplies for some time.

"GAIL north-western pipeline grid supports about 80 mmscmd and there is no damage to the network due to the unfortunate incident at ONGC facilities at Hazira," the company statement said.

GAIL added it was committed for the safe operation of the pipeline network and maintaining close coordination with ONGC teams at the site, toward the speedier restoration of natural gas supplies through alternative systems.

GAS RATIONING

GAIL has adopted a rationing strategy as regards to gas supplies to customers as the company is unclear when the Hazira plant would resume full operations after the fire incident Sept. 24.

GAIL immediately shut-off around 30 million cu m/d into its north-western HVJ gas pipeline after the fire incident.

In the force majeure event triggered by the ONGC Hazira incident, supply cuts up to 40% against current allocations has been imposed on the downstream customers, a GAIL official said.

Supplies to city gas customers for supporting domestic kitchens via piped natural gas and public transportation were uninterrupted.

SUPPLY DIVERSION

ONGC has also diverted 2 million-2.5 million cu m/d of gas from its Uran processing plant near to western metropolis Mumbai to meet the immediate shortfall of critical customers.

State-owned power producer NTPC has shut its 656 MW gas-based power plant at Kawas near Hazira and also its 657 MW Jhanor-Gandhar plant as a fallout of the supply disruption, industry officials said.

Fertilizer major Kribhco has reduced capacity after cutting gas supplies, they added.